Guadalajara

"Guadalajara" is a beautiful name for a place, So Is "San Cristóbal de Las Casas", a name that reflects much historic signififance. The foundation of the name San Cristóbal de Las Casas goes back some 400 years and any study of that is a worthy endeavor but that is not the point here, It has become almost universally acceptable hereabouts among foreigners resident in Metropolitan Guadalajara to render the poetic name Guadalajara into the gut-wrenching and universally unpleasant shortcut name name of "Guad". Guadalajara has the beautiful sound of melded Spanish and Arabic phraseology while "Guad" is reminiscent of a toilet flushing. Some American morons in San Cristóbal de Las Casas shorten that ultimately romantic reference to "San Cris". Call anyplace anything that suits you but show a bit of class, please. Mexico is a free country so do as you please but don´t expect nose picking to lead toward any elegant stage walk.

Thank you Dawg!

This has been a pet peave of mine for quite some time! To my way of thinking, it shows a lack of respect and extreme laziness on the part of the foreign population. If one is referring to the Guadalajara Airport, then GDL is acceptable but bastardizing Guadalajara to "GUAD" is not! A while back, I tangled with a designated "destination expert" on TripAdvisor who happens to live at the Lake about her usage of of Guad. Went right over her arrogant head!

And I feel the same way about "Joco" in reference to Jocotepec. Is it too difficult to pronounce?

So do you fellows also take umbridge with other such nick names:

LA
Sin City
MoTown
The Big Apple
The Big Easy

Inquiring minds want to know........jaja.

I stopped taking umbridge when it gave me indigestion.

The doctor told me it also causes cancer.

YUP!

It is a personal thing but I either spell out the full name of the town or State or when appropriate, I use the Airport designation. Yes, it is sometimes a pain in the butt and can get a bit testy when trying to make sure that I spell the name right.

Americans love to give nicknames, shorten names of cities, in their country they do what they feel like it but I can tell you that when I hear Guad, Joco, San Cris and so on I just hurt.
We have the same reaction in France. Latin languages do not shorten names of cities and it hurts to hear these beautiful names with a beautiful rythm massacred by an American accent on top of it. It sounds horrible.
If you say Guad to a Mexican most people will have no idea of what you are talking about.

Balderdash!! Evrything that is too long to pronounce, in every culture, is shortened!! No-one in Mexico uses my full name, ever...always a shortened version....when I say Guad to them they know exactly to what i refer! So, again, I say, Balderdash!! What about Buenos! For buenos dias, buenos tardes, buenos noches....etc.

CanuckBob wrote:So do you fellows also take umbridge with other such nick names:

LA
Sin City
MoTown
The Big Apple
The Big Easy

Inquiring minds want to know........jaja.

Of course objection would be taken at these nicknames but the proper nickname for Guadalajara is "El Rancho Grande", not "Guad". By the way; how are things up there in the Frozen Tundra? Exhausted from preparing the next northerly to send down here and freeze our socks off? While passing through Alabama on the way to Mexico, try not to freeze my satsuma orchard.

Granted Albuquerque can be a bit of a trial for one's spelling ability and ABQ is the official designation for the airport but our previous so-called progressive Mayor decided on a marketing campaign to pawn off Albuquerque as the Q. The entire concept has been a total flop!

As for Miss Balderdash, my guess would be that she may hail from somewhere with little civic pride or history to back it up? Guadalajara was settled in 1532/1533 and with over 500 years under its belt, certainly on the basis of longevity alone should be treated with respect.

brigitte wrote:Americans love to give nicknames, shorten names of cities, in their country they do what they feel like it but I can tell you that when I hear Guad, Joco, San Cris and so on I just hurt.
We have the same reaction in France. Latin languages do not shorten names of cities and it hurts to hear these beautiful names with a beautiful rythm massacred by an American accent on top of it. It sounds horrible.
If you say Guad to a Mexican most people will have no idea of what you are talking about.

Paris = La Ville-Lumière (City of lights or illumination)

That maybe what you call it but I call it Paris and so does anyone I know who lives over there-
Do not try to get a train ticket for La Ville Lumiere, they will laugh you out of the station.

When is the last time you saw Ville Lumiere Toutes Directions on a sign? Actually that is pretty funny too.

hound dog wrote:

CanuckBob wrote:So do you fellows also take umbridge with other such nick names:

LA
Sin City
MoTown
The Big Apple
The Big Easy

Inquiring minds want to know........jaja.

Of course objection would be taken at these nicknames but the proper nickname for Guadalajara is "El Rancho Grande", not "Guad". By the way; how are things up there in the Frozen Tundra? Exhausted from preparing the next northerly to send down here and freeze our socks off? While passing through Alabama on the way to Mexico, try not to freeze my satsuma orchard.

Well thanks for asking Mr. Dawg. The weather up here in Raincouver has been unseasonably warm since we sent all the cold down south. Now I won't be passing anywhere near Alabamy on my way down nor can I bring you any Moon Pies since they were outlawed many years ago up here however I can bring you a carton of Players filter, a six pack of Molson Canadian, a 26er of Canadian Club, a lb of back bacon, a hockey stick and a box of Timbits.

Only east coast people say Frisco for San Fransisco in the west.

Z

I hated that "Frisco" tag by visitors when I lived nearby. We said San Francisco or "The City." I lived in the SF Bay Area the same time as the Dawg. We even drank at the same bar in Oakland, The Fat Lady, but never (as near as we can recall) ever met.

Fat Lady..old memories. Did you ever meet Rick Schwaderer? He used to be a bar tender there and was Janice Joplin accountant at one time, he resurfaced as our neighbor in the Mayacamas mountains in the 90´s.
"Frisco" another grating name... Nick names do not bother me, they can be cute but the shortening of names make my skin crawl.

David wrote:I hated that "Frisco" tag by visitors when I lived nearby. We said San Francisco or "The City." I lived in the SF Bay Area the same time as the Dawg. We even drank at the same bar in Oakland, The Fat Lady, but never (as near as we can recall) ever met.

Perhaps, Dave, one of the reasons we cannot recall having met each other at The Fat Lady in Downtown Oakland has something to do with what we and many other 1980s era business people including a large coterie of Oakland´s legal profession, consumed while there in the afternoons over, shall we say, polonged, booze filled "business" lunches when we were supposed to be at work. I rewarded my assistant branch manager and personal secretary (remember those?) very well to cover for me when San Francisco headquarters called. This was in the days before cell phones and other devices had been invented so, if one was an outside salesman as was I, it was possible to disappear for hours at a time while "entertaining clients" or making "business calls".

By the way, my regional manager out of San Francisco was always apprehensive about coming to visit me at the bank´s Oakland main branch because Downtown Oakland had such a bad reputation for violence in those days. The nearest BART Station was about four blocks from the branch so I told tell him not to worry; just make sure there was at least a $20 Bill sticking out of his back pocket on the walk between the BART Station and the bank and any lurking muggers could grab the money without having to bean him in the process. I rarely got visits from the home office.

shirley wrote:Balderdash!! Evrything that is too long to pronounce, in every culture, is shortened!! No-one in Mexico uses my full name, ever...always a shortened version....when I say Guad to them they know exactly to what i refer! So, again, I say, Balderdash!! What about Buenos! For buenos dias, buenos tardes, buenos noches....etc.

Wow! I've never known anyone who was personally knowledgeable about "every culture"! That's quite an achievement, shirley!

So, if the Mexicans use a shortened version of "Shirley" -- do they call you "Shi" or "Shirl"?

During my many years in CA, San Francisco was referred to as "the City" by anyone north of San Luis Opispo. Los Angeles people always referred to it as LA, as did all other Californians. People from outside of CA were the ones using "Frisco". People in San Miguel refer to it as "San Miguel" without the "de Allende".

IMHO, getting one's shorts in a twist over whether we're showing respect by way of avoiding nicknames is living in the land of the nitpickers. When there is respect, it is evident in many other ways. And thank the gods that Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Glascow and London aren't the kind of spelling and/or pronunciation challenges as some of the cities and towns in Mexico.

gringal wrote:IMHO, getting one's shorts in a twist over whether we're showing respect by way of avoiding nicknames is living in the land of the nitpickers.

gringal - Now let's be fair. I didn't get the impression that hound dog had his "shorts in a twist" at all; he merely made an observation (which in my estimation is justified) that foreigners corrupt the names of Mexican towns and cities, because it is too inconvenient to learn the pronunciation (my interpretation). His call was for a bit more class, that's all.

To wit:

hound dog wrote:Call anyplace anything that suits you but show a bit of class, please. Mexico is a free country so do as you please but don´t expect nose picking to lead toward any elegant stage walk.

Further, I have never had a conversation with any Mexican who said "Guad" when referring to "Guadalajara"; and I couldn't care less what the practice might be NoB.

[quote="gringalIMHO, getting one's shorts in a twist over whether we're showing respect by way of avoiding nicknames is living in the land of the nitpickers. When there is respect, it is evident in many other ways. And thank the gods that Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Glascow and London aren't the kind of spelling and/or pronunciation challenges as some of the cities and towns in Mexico.

[/quote]

Gringal is OK in Dawg´s book but out of touch. Of course, people in San Miguel, the ultimate NOB composite of what must have seemed to have represented Colonial Mexcico but, in fact, one that is and was Disneyesque fantasy appealling to the lowest common denominator of NOB settlers seeking respite from delights in Carmel and Palm Beach; places they cannot and never could afford. How pathetic that they sit on their decks overlooking a muddy sump at Lake Chapala or filling false bottoms in clay pots to create high trees which will always be fingerlings in their lifetimes. If they amounted to a hill of beans they would be summering in St.Tropez and wintering in Cuernavaca. I´m thinkig of doing this as soon as, as with any good squirrel, I have gathered my nuts about me.

Gringal:

Your reference to the use of "The City" would be true not only with San Francisco but also in any suburban area or rural area that surrounds a larger metropolitan area. In this context, it would have to be more of a generic term used by locals to describe where they might be headed. For example, someone in San Jose might use that term to describe San Francisco but not if they were headed to the far larger city of Los Angeles but for a resident of say Riverside, the opposite would be true. If people at Lake Chapala were to refer to going into "The City", it would sound much better than the hick abbreviation of going into Guad.

My comments about nitpicking were directed at the general tone of the thread, in which a number of posters were suggesting that nicknames of cities with long names were disrespectful. They are just something that NOB types and even some nose-in-the-air Brits, among others, do. Thus, we have "Muffy" and "Babs" happily accept nicknames among the Old Money, in cases where her full name might include a title and six or seven other names on the birth certificate.
In other words, none of us around here is in a position to shun others' use of nicknames and could.
lighten up a bit.

St. Tropez isn't my cuppa.......I am much more comfortable walking along the local sump.

And just HOW should we pronounce (let alone spell) the name of that area near the Guadalajara airport that starts with an "I" and goes on from there?

If you are referring to: Ixtlahuacán de los Membrillos, it is spelled just the way it is pronounced: Ixt-la-hua-cán-de-los-Mem-brillos
HA! Didn't have to look it up but then again, we had a home there for eight years.

Be thankful that we are not discussing cities, towns and villages in Michoacán where so many names have a basis in the languages of the P'urhépecha indigenous tribe: ie Tzintzuntzan. I have noticed on Michoacán forums/message boards that some of the foreign population have taken to calling Patzcuaro with the abbreviation "PATZ".